Another Server Failure

Hot on the heels of the Second Inventory server failure reported earlier, comes another server failure, this time it is none other than the OSGrid, and their website too.

Why is that companies and organisations such as SL, SI, and OSGrid deem it wise to host their websites on the same server as their services? When the service goes down, so does their websites and their forums, so no-one can ask what is going on.

IRC Channels
You may have heard me mention about the help I get from the opensim irc channel. What IS an irc channel anyway, you might ask. "Internet Relay Chat (irc) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message, as well as chat and data transfers via Direct Client-to-Client." (courtesy of the WikipediA entry).

To access irc channels you need to either download a client, such as Bersirc (which I use at home), or use a web service such as Mibbit (which I use when away from home). Mibbet is an excellent irc web client, just go to the website and type 'opensim' in the Find Channels box at the top-right. The first hit should be #opensim@irc.freenode.net, just click on this link. Then give yourself a nickname, and you are in. Here you can follow the chat among the developers and the users, and when you feel comfortable, introduce yourself, and pose a comment or question. There is no archive, so I just leave it running in the background and scan the chat every so often for any interesting threads.

I learnt today that there is an irc channel for OSGrid too, #osgrid. Do the same with Mibbit above, and type 'osgrid' into the Find Channels box.

Anubia Update

Been working on my standalone region this last three days, as I had some time off work. I got an intra-sim Menu-Driven Teleporter system working, a Video Jukebox, and a Dance Machine. Yesterday it was poseball making for all my sofas and chairs, various sits and lounging, that sort of thing, and the day before I made the sofas and chairs. I am going to start work on sounds tomorrow.

Have fun with yours,

Rock

Second Inventory Down
Second Inventory has been down for the third day now. Rumour has it a server HD failed. People who have downloaded their inventory from SL to their HD cannot restore it to OpenSim or elsewhere, as the SI program will not even start up as it needs an authentication from its home server. I bet they wished they never encouraged people to buy their product for this reason on their website: "The SL™ Asset Server is not absolutely reliable and often loses irremediably the hours of your work or the expensive objects that you bought." I guess they don't know all they think they know about reliability, backups, and server redundancy strategies.

Edit (12th Oct 2008): Second Inventory is now restored. The earlier notice about a hard disk failure has now been superceded by a notice saying that the server farm they were on had a massive problem.

Attempt to Get a Server Failed
I tried this week to get a dedicated server to host my OpenSim. The attempt failed miserably at the first hurdle. The two suppliers I tried (both USA firms) insisted that my Credit Card be issued in the same country as my billing address. I wonder if they insist that US cardholders have the card issued in the same State as their billing address?

No such problems with Europeans suppliers, but I will have to re-evaluate their plans.

Is it time to bite the bullet and switch to Linux?
It is noticeable that server plans are far cheaper if you take Linux as the OS (no license fees to pay, as with Windows). The gurus on the Opensim irc channel also tell me that Linux is faster too (it is much slimmer than Windows and has far less processes taking up valuable CPU time and other resources) and that OpenSim was mainly a Linux development.

Perhaps I will get that Linux-on-a-Bootable-CD and give it a whirl. Or maybe load it onto a spare PC and play with it. Could save me a packet in the long run.

Have fun

Rock

Deleting a Region
In Article 9 I bemoaned the fact that there was no OpenSim command to delete a region. Fortunately, with the latest release of OpenSim, Version 0.5.11. 6676, we now have a new command, delete-region. This command deletes a region and its associated region file.

Just in case the command was introduced earlier, and I have been lacking in observation, it might be a good idea to benchmark the current commands in release 6676, so I can tell at a glance if they are changed in future.

Current OpenSim Console Commands
alert - send alert to a designated user or all users.

alert [First] [Last] [Message] - send an alert to a user. Case sensitive.

alert general [Message] - send an alert to all users.

backup - persist simulator objects to the database ahead of the normal schedule.

clear-assets - clear the asset cache.

create-region - create a new region.

change-region - select the region that single region commands operate upon.

command-script [filename] - Execute command in a file.

config set section field value - set a config value.

config get section field - get a config value.

config save - save OpenSim.ini

create user - adds a new user.

debug - debugging commands.

debug packet 0..255 - print incoming/outgoing packets (0=off).

debug scene [scripting] [collision] [physics] - Enable/Disable debug stuff, each can be True/False.

delete-region [name] - delete a region and its associated region file.

echoTest - this echos your command args to see how they are parsed.

edit-scale [prim name] [x] [y] [z] - resize given prim.

export-map [filename] - save image of world map.

force-update - force an update of prims in the scene.

kickuser - kickuser [first] [last] - attempts to log off a user from any region we are serving.

load-xml2 [filename] - load prims from XML using version 2 format.

load-oar [filename] - load an OpenSimulator region archive. This replaces everything in the current region.

quit - equivalent to shutdown.

restart - disconnects all clients and restarts the sims in the instance.

remove-region [name] - remove a region.

reset user password - reset a user's password.

save-oar [filename] - Save the current region to an OpenSimulator region archive.

save-xml2 [filename] - save prims to XML using version 2 format.

script - manually trigger scripts? or script commands?

set log level [level] - change the console logging level only. For example, off or debug.

set-time [x] - set the current scene time phase.

show assets - show state of asset cache.

show info - show server information (e.g. startup path).

show stats - show statistical information for this server.

show threads - list tracked threads.

show uptime - show server startup time and uptime.

show version - show server version.

show users - show info about connected users (only root agents).

show users full - show info about connected users (root and child agents).

show modules - shows info about loaded modules.

show regions - show running region information.

shutdown - shutdown the server.

terrain help - show help for terrain commands.

If you have any comments on any of the above commands, or if any do not operate as expected, please feel free to post a comment, which I will be sure to pass on to the developers.

Rock

Premium Content
There is a lot of freebie content in the OpenSim Community, and the garden in OSGrid's Wright Plaza is well stocked in that regard, and by using Second Inventory you can move all full-perm objects from SL to your OpenSim. However, to make your OpenSim experience really great you will need some premium content, but the news there is not so good.

I have been speaking with a number of premium content makers in SL, the sort that rely on more than just prims - the gurus of animation, texturing, particles, scripting etc. who provide us with our quality poseballs, beds, dances, showers, plants and trees, and so on.

None of the creators I spoke to were prepared to supply their products to the OpenSim community, simply because they had no protection against their intellectual property getting out into the wild and destroying their SL business.

I was wondering if this could be managed by having a Premium Inventory Content Server (PICS), that could serve all the independent grids, containing the premium content purchased by customers, but held securely, and with full permissions applied. The server could have a merchant window, similar to SLX, but the products are never actually delivered to the customer, but are maintained on the PICS and are accessed in parallel with the normal content on the customers own Inventory Server in his OpenSim. In other words, a mixed local/grid mode as far as inventory is concerned.

The good news is, I finally managed to find a very realistic bathroom shower particle effect, that was full-perm. I had searched for quite some time. I found a link for it here.

Gridnauts Project - Latest News
OGP teleports between the Linden Lab beta and preview grids and OpenSim regions, running in both grid and standalone mode, are now a fact of life, with over 100 residents teleporting successfully. The OGP teleport specification has now been released, but bug fixing is still ongoing. The Gridnauts team are now currently considering the next steps, exciting days indeed.

I sincerely hope that avatar appearance at start and end of teleport can be maintained, and if the entire inventory of the avatar cannot go with him on his teleports, then at least an avatar suitcase facility. After all, when you travel in RL you do not take everything you own with you, do you? You take a suitcase.

Some Terminology
Maybe it is time to start a small glossary of terms. I will get the ball rolling with these two. Please feel free to add some more in the Comments. I will collate the best.

OpenSimmers (NOT OpenSinners, that was definitely a typo!): people who own and operate an OpenSim region or regions.

OpenSimmering: Getting frustrated with a release that fixed one bug while introducing three others.

Have fun

Rock

Creating MySQL Database Backups
I have just reached the point where the build in my standalone is sufficiently mature that I would hate to lose it. So, it is time to capture the moment, and make a backup.

Essentially there are two ways of making a backup, a physical backup and a logical backup, and I will describe both. Before proceeding, I created a folder to hold my backups. I have one of these standalone 'Brick' storage drives, that connects to my PC via the USB port, where I store all my backups (in case the HD in my PC fails). I created a folder called 'OpenSim Backup 26 Sep 2008'.

Physical Backup
Making a physical backup is simple, but can be dangerous. You MUST ensure that the database is not in use before doing this, so make sure that your OpenSim server is NOT running! OK, if you are sure that the database is not in use, navigate to the MySQL data folder, on my machine this was located at:- c:\program files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.0\data

Right-click the data folder, choose Copy, then navigate to your backup folder you created earlier, and Paste it there. Job done.

Logical Copy
To make a logical copy you can use the console command mysqldump, but as always, preferring the simpler life, I downloaded a lovely little application that does that for me. In fact, it is a great little suite of useful application for MySQL, it is the MySQL GUI Tools Bundle for 5.0, and can be downloaded from here. Once it is downloaded, running the download will install the tools under the MySQL folder. Then, go to Start, Program Files, MySQL, and select the MySQL Administrator tool. When the tool starts it will ask you which MySQL server to connect to. For the Server Host enter 'localhost' , for the Username enter the root username that you used when setting up MySQL (in my case, I left it as the default 'root'), and the password you created at the time, and click on OK. The tool will then open, and connect.

To create your backup, simply select the Backup icon on the left-side panel, click on New Project, call it Opensim (don't worry with a date in the filename, it will append the date and time to whatever name you choose automatically). You then select the databases you wish to backup, and I chose avatar_appearance, opensim, mysql, and test (not knowing what was in each of these databases, I decided to back them all up, to be safe). Selecting a database, and clicking on the '>' button moves them to the right-hand pane, ready to be backed-up. Once you have selected the databases to be backed up, just hit the Execute Backup Now button, choose where you want the backup to be stored, and click on OK. Job done.

A Better Console for OpenSim
The other little utility I played with after being recommended it in the #opensim irc channel, is a replacement for the OpenSim Console, which is not very user friendly. The utility is simply called 'Console', and is available from here. I chose Release 2.00

After unzipping the package, you will find in the Console2 folder the Console.exe program, double-click to launch it. To set it up, go into Edit, Settings, and in the Startup dir: navigate to your OpenSim Bin folder, then click on OK to select it. Close the program. Now, next time you start the program it will open in the openSim Bin folder, and you can enter the executable that you normally use for starting the OpenSim Server, either OpenSim.exe or OpenSim.32BitLaunch.exe.

You will see straight away how much nicer this console front-end is, much bigger than the Windows console window, and with handy Copy/Paste icons on the Tools bar to make life easier.

Have fun

Rock

Fixing Bent Leg Syndrome
I noticed that when recreating my SL shape in OpenSim, and using maximum height and leg lengths, I have the infamous bent-leg syndrome (the default OpenSim Ruth avatar does not suffer from this).

I decided to have a play with some of the settings in the OpenSim.ini file, in the Avatar Control section.

The first I tried was this entry:

; Max force permissible to use to keep the avatar standing up straight
av_capsule_standup_tensor_win = 550000

Setting this value higher, to 700000 fixed the bent-leg, but walking up inclines and stairs was quite difficult.

I then put that value back to the default value, and tried this one instead:

;girth of the avatar. Adds radius to the height also
av_capsule_radius = 0.37

I was not sure what this parameter actually was (initially), but I tried it lower, at 0.17, and I seemed to have even more bent-legs than normal, so, full of excitement, I then changed it to 0.57, and bingo, bent-legs fixed! I then tried walking up inclines and stairs and no problem :) However, when I spoke of this succcess in the opensim irc channel I was told by one of the developers that this change would result in my avatar having a bigger radius, in other words, I may have difficulty in walking through narrow doorways, so my vampire coffin weekends would be most definitely out :)

He suggested that I play with another setting:

av_height_fudge_factor = 0.52

I changed this value to 0.42, and again, success! I will leave this setting as it is.

Accessing your OpenSim locally, when in External Mode
After you have changed your External_Host setting in the default.xml file in the Regions folder to allow visitors to come into your region, you find that you have to come in the same way, and suffer the same lag effects as your visitors. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to access your region locally? Well, you can! Try this little trick: Go into your Windows\system32\drivers\etc\ folder, and look for a file called 'Hosts' (no extension). Open this file with notepad, and add the following line at the bottom:

127.0.0.1 myregion.hostname.com

Replace myregion.hostname.com with the actual external hostname you are using. Basically when you use the external hostname in your viewer, Windows will resolve what IP address this refers to, instead of the external web DNS servers (who will point that address to the IP address of your PC modem or router). In this case, whenever Windows comes across the myregion.hostname.com hostname, it will resolve the address automatically to 127.0.0.1, which as we learnt earlier, is the special address for this machine.

Edit: One or two people have reported that visitors could not log in when using this method. If you have any problems then just remove the entry. Meanwhile, I will look at a more universal solution to logging in locally while visitors log in remotely.

Rock

A common pitfall?
I had a friend get very interested in OpenSim, so she downloaded the binary and the Hippo viewer from the OSGrid site.

She followed my step-by-step guide to the letter, and it crashed with a 'Registration Failed' error message. I asked her to check that she had set gridmode=false, and she assured me she had. After more 'try-this, try-that' she sent me the contents of her OpenSim.ini file, and it all looked perfect.

I didn't get the clue until I asked her for the OpenSim.32BitLaunch.log, when she said she could not see one called 'log', did I want the notepad one?

The problem was that she was using Windows XP, with the default settings for folder view. If you open folder view, either by using Windows Explorer, or via My Computer, you will see in the menu at the top, Tools, go into there and select Folder Options, then choose the View tab, in the Advanced Settings, about 10 down, you will see Hide extensions for known file types. The default setting is 'checked', and this can lead to all sorts of confusion (I told her to uncheck it).

Because the extensions were hidden, when she looked into her Bin folder she saw the file I mentioned, OpenSim.ini, but this was in fact OpenSim.ini.orig (with the orig extension being hidden), and it was this file she was editing, not the OpenSim.ini file. Consequently, she was opening up in grid mode every time, as the real OpenSim.ini file never got edited.

Now that she could see the file extensions, and could edit the correct files, the step-by-step procedure worked perfectly.

Keep this in mind if a friend runs into trouble and asks for help.

Gridnauts
I joined the Gridnauts program set up by LL to test teleporting between the LL Preview Grid (aditi) and OpenSim. You have to download the patched version of OpenSim, that has been OGP (Open Grid Protocol) patched. The teleporting worked very well indeed. This is an important first step. Appearance and inventory portability next?? Details of the program are here.

Changing an Estate Name in OpenSim
I wanted to change the default estate name of 'My Estate' in OpenSim, but could not find any info on how to do this. I noticed in the bin folder an xml file called estate_settings.xml, and in there was a setting: estate_name="My Estate", so I changed this to the name I wanted, estate_name="Kemet", and started everything up, full of confidence in my skill and perspicacity. I opened up the About Land, and there it was, Estate name: My Estate

Undaunted (actually I wept bucketfulls), I wandered into my database with Toad. There is a table called estate_settings, and in here I found that the name was set to 'My Estate'. A quick edit here to 'Kemet', and I shut everything down and fired it all up again. With somewhat subdued enthusiasm I opened the About Land...

Estate Name = Kemet, yay!!!!

Using Second Inventory
I wanted to have a go at transferring inventory from SL to my OpenSim, so I purchased a copy of Second Inventory. Basically you fire up SI, and do a backup of the objects, or the folders you want, or the entire inventory tree, to hard-disk. This can take hours for a lot of stuff, so, do it before going to bed, or to the store.

Once it is all backed-up on your hard-drive you can then restore to your OpenSim. But, first a few warnings:

a) It will only restore items that are full permission
b) It will not sort the full permission objects for you, you must find them yourself
c) Restore works on one single object only. So it is a lot of work restoring 100s or 1000s of objects.
d) Don't expect complex multi-prim objects, with textures applied, and containing various scripts, anims etc to restore perfectly. It won't.

Other than that, it works well.

Hippo Viewer Crashes
I found when using the Hippo Viewer that if I changed any setting in the Edit, Preferences (such as turn off Avatar Names, or change the Draw Distance) the Viewer would crash and close down. If I relogged (without restarting the server) I was told that Rock Vacirca was already logged in. Logging in a second time usually worked, but I could also have used the kickuser command in the server console.

Now, when I want preferences changed I do it BEFORE logging in with the viewer. All the preferences are available to set beforehand, by clicking on the Grids button on the viewer.

The odd thing is, I have found no-one else in the OSGrid forum who also have experienced Hippo Viewer crashes. So why me?

When is a hole not a hole?
I made a 20 x 20 x 0.5 floor, hollowed it to 40% to use as a pond/pool, and when I walked onto the hole I was amazed to find it completely solid. I had a quick lurk in the #opensim IRC channel, and Jenni there told me the problem, 'use the other mesher' she said. In the opensim.ini file, under physics, you have a choice of two meshers (don't ask me what a 'mesher' is). The default mesher was ZeroMesher, so I chose the other one MeshMerizer. After a restart, I was happily falling through the hole. I wonder why you get a choice of two, one that works, and one that doesn't?

Have fun,

Rock

Building work in Anubia almost complete now.

Earlier crashes and missing textures were due to a failing router (a hardware problem on my part). The software itself has not yet produced any problems, so far.

Going to try to connect to OSGrid this weekend, then do some visitor load tests to see at what level the number of avatars starts to affect my sim performance (currently, with 4 of us in there there is no lag whatsoever, but I wonder what it will be like with 20, 30??)

If the current upload speed from my ISP is sufficient to serve 10 avatars, then I don't think I will consider upgrading to a home/business account with my ISP for the higher upload speeds offered.

Rock

Started building in my sim, which I have named 'Anubia'. As there are no stores the buildings, textures, scripts etc all have the be created by hand, from scratch, NOT for the faint-hearted!

IlsaRose, Abby and Melinda came by later to have a look around, and I noticed that two of them had this chequerboard look all over their clothes and bodies (the equivalent of the Sl 'Missing' texture?). One of them went normal during the stay, the other did not. Two of my guests crashed during a 30 minute visit, and I froze twice, then the server crashed and we all had to relog after I restarted the server.

I also noticed that the basic body, skin, eyes, hair, and clothes that I created and wear do not persist from one login to another, and each time I log in I have to drag them all from inventory onto myself.

I also noticed that in my RealXtend viewer it is always midnight when I log in, while my four guests, all using the SL viewer, all arrive with it being noon for them.

Before I get any further with my building, I will backup my bin folder. I will then create a fresh copy of the bin folder and copy across the databases from my backup and see if all my inventory is restored. I am a little worried about what will happen to my inventory after I download a new release of OpenSim and install it. Is it really simply a matter of copying the *.db files from the previous version to the new bin folder?? We will see.

Rock

Welcome to my blog.

First, an introduction.

I have been a resident of Second Life now since September 2006 (although it seems more like eighteen years than eighteen months), and my two main alts are Rock Ryder (business) and Rock Vacirca (social).

After being in SL for six months I decided to try my hand in the rental business, mainly because I was dissatisfied with the homes and environments on offer at that time, and so the Fair Isles Estate was born. My first sim was Sukka Mire, and it was a runaway success, filling very quickly, and with a waiting list for vacancies. This was due in no small part to the fabulous SkyHomes custom designed for me by that ace SL architect, ArchTX Edo, and with the inspiration for the interior design provided by another good friend, Kryss Atansoff.

The success of Sukka Mire prompted the purchase of another sim, Swey, and the same formula for success was employed there. Swey also quickly filled. The next sim was Hoini, and a different approach was adopted for this sim (I could always revert to the proven formula if the new approach failed). Hoini was to be a themed sim, and the theme was the 1001 Arabian Nights.

ArchTX was approached again, and he came up with a stunning design for the new SkyHomes based on his Blue Frost design, but again customised to employ domes and other nice touches. He also designed what has become a legendary place in SL, the Scheherazade Gardens, a magical place for hopeless romantics, floating serenely up at 700m. Each SkyHome was decorated to the highest standard, and all the art in the Homes came from the illustrations from the early editions of the 1001 Nights, with those of Edmund Dulac being prominent. Each tenant got a free magic carpet to get around on, and the sim became an overnight success on opening, and quickly became the flagship of the Estate. Whenever some one in the Resident Forums asked 'what is the best build in SL?', or 'what is the most romantic place in SL?', or 'where is a good place in SL to propose?', Hoini was mentioned by many people in response. You cannot imagine how this made me feel, I was glowing so much I almost went super-nova :)

But by the summer of 2007 things started to take a turn for the worse. Stability issues in SL started to stretch toleration, lag became the new demon, and support was almost non-existant. The introduction of a new continent, Corsica, brought land prices down which tempted some of my tenants to try their hand at land ownership/building, but I was able to replace them with those on the waiting list. So, I was still full, my tenants were reasonably happy, and it was costing me nothing (I never made a profit on the entire Estate, that was never the goal, the rents were set to simply break-even on my investment, with a capital amortization period being set at eighteen months).

However, in late September 2007 LL sprang a surprise announcement on their European-based customers, with the news that they would be charging European rates of Value Added Tax (VAT) on all land purchases and on monthly tier payments. They later admitted that they had been absorbing the cost of VAT for some time to ensure a level playing field for residents within SL, but could absorb it no more and were passing it on to their European customers. [Reference] There was no mention of the possibility of this in the Land Store when I was purchasing my sims. Had I known that LL were required to charge VAT to their European-based customers, but had been absorbing that cost for months, and that one day they may decide to stop absorbing that cost, I would never have expanded my rental estate. I was simply not made aware of this risk.

Although I am English, I reside in Germany, and my VAT rate there is 19%. There was no way that I could compete with US-based rental competitors who were not having to pay this tax, and I lost tenants quite quickly. Only a third of my tenants believed that the ambiance in my sims was enough of a factor to keep them from going off to other sims charging less rent for the same number of prims. Several of my competitors were openly advertising the fact that they were US-based, and not subject to VAT, and their rental rates would reflect this accordingly.

I had to cut costs, I got rid of two of my managers, which was not an easy thing to do at all, and I still could not compete, and I was losing money, fast. So in the following October I had to, very regretably, break up the Estate, selling all my sims, except for Hoini, which I wanted to hold on to as it was this sim that I had put the most work, time, and heart into.

As an aside, many people have asked me where I got the names for my sims from, such as Sukka Mire, Swey, Hoini etc. The answer is in the name of the Estate, the Fair Isles Estate. Fair Isle is an island off the north coast of Scotland. If you check a map of the island you will see that the names of my sims have come from field names and other places on the island.

More work was then done on Hoini to improve further the experience of living there, and eventually I managed to get the occupancy rate back up with a strong core of dedicated tenants who just loved the Hoini environment. I also purchased an OpenSpace sim to provide even more room for the tenants (luckily getting back my old sim name of Sukka Mire, after the purchaser of SM changed its name, making the SM name available again). However, more announcements by Linden Labs were to change things for good.

In early April 2008 LL announced drastic price changes on the purchase of new private island sims, down from US$1675 to US$1000, and OpenSpace sims down from US$420 to US$250. They also announced the release of more Mainland, and promised to review prices again in the third quarter of 2008.

Land prices dropped, tenants left to take up these attractive offers, and I was onced again faced with a 50% occupied sim, and losing money once more. New entrants to the rental market could afford to charge less rent, having less capital investment to amortize, the pressure was finally just too much to bear, as I had only just managed to keep my head above water following the 19% VAT hit, I now found myself sinking.

It was time to call a halt.

With a regret that I can only describe as deeply personal, I put up my sims of Hoini and Sukka Mire. I got US$1000 for them (not each, for both!), losing over US$1000 of the original purchase prices in the process. Luckily, the new owner Beady, intends to keep Hoini as it is, and is the reason I chose him to sell them to above the half-dozen other offers I received.

It was at this point that I decided never to put my fate in the hands of Linden Labs again, and I embarked on a new journey, with the up and coming OpenSim software.

As this was to be a new direction for me (while still maintaining a presence in SL, paradoxically as a tenant now in Hoini, rather than the owner), I thought it might be useful to start a blog on this new path, so that others might discover something about OpenSim, OpenLife, OSGrid, RealXtend etc and learn from my experiences purely as a user of this software, as i am no software developer/programmer.

I will post regular updates now to the blog, detailing my experiences in setting up a standalone sim on my own PC, then doubling the population, then inviting others to join me there, then connecting my sim to an opensource grid, such as OSGrid, etc.

The journey begins....